My name is Gerard Blokdijk, I've been in many enterprise data center management and CxO roles over the past 25 years, and spoken to thousands of people at public events and at companies in 23 countries.

And I'm an author.

I have just published my new book, co-authored with Ivanka Menken, called 'CIO: Standard Requirements'. Because I feel this is of interest to you, and to establish mutual ground, I want to give you the book.

Something straightforward as 'CIO: Standard Requirements' is the CIO guide I wish I had when I needed it; a tool to help develop a detailed vision of all areas impacted by a CIO implementation, and a useful tool for scoring readiness and implementation quality.

It highlights what's important now and in the future for the reader and delivers a CIO roadmap to instantly understand and move forward in the right direction, based on verifiable data.

10 Sample Requirements:

1. The full extent of a given risk and its priority compared to other risks are not understood. Failure to address the most important risks first leads to dangerous exposures. Nearly all managers believe that their risks are the most important in the enterprise (or at least they say so) but whose risks
really matter most?
2. Does your organization constantly monitor in real time your networks, systems and applications for unauthorized access or anomalous behavior such as viruses, malicious code insertion, or break-in attempts?

3. We have determined whether the goals, norms and rules of our organization are properly transmitting the value of the organizational culture to staff members and if there are areas for improvement

4. When deciding to outsource we know if the candidate services require extensive interactions between the service providers and the business's competitive and strategic resources and capabilities

5. Has the CIO ensured security training and awareness of all agency employees, including contractors and those employees with significant IT security responsibilities?

6. If services come in direct contact with the customers of customers, we have additional policies and guidelines required to handle user interactions and user information?

7. What impact has emerging technology (e.g., cloud computing, virtualization and mobile computing) had on your companys ITRM program over the past 12 months?

8. Do you have a good understanding of emerging technologies and business trends that are vital for the management of IT risks in a fast-changing environment?

9. Is the CIO or someone similar, responsible for strategic planning, implementation, and management of integrated systems identified by the IT infrastructure plan?

10. Our strategic approach to Service Design results in services that can be offered at a competitive market price, substantially reduced risk, or offers superior value?